


The Craig Castle Irregulars

by Ladybug_21



Series: CODE NAMES | CIPHERS | CIRCLES [3]
Category: Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein, The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Gen, PostWar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: If she'd left Bletchley Park when her sister died, Jean's life after the war might have turned out very differently.
Series: CODE NAMES | CIPHERS | CIRCLES [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588594
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Craig Castle Irregulars

**Author's Note:**

> Makes references to [another fic of mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641074) in which Jean McBrien and Julie Beaufort-Stuart meet while both working for the Special Operations Executive during the war. I own no rights to either fandom.

The train ride from Glasgow to Aberdeenshire was not as long as the train ride from London to Glasgow, but to Jean, it felt an eternity longer. Not one to fiddle nervously, she instead sat rigidly still in her seat, her hands clasped in her lap, anxious to arrive and yet more anxious still at the thought of her destination.

Finally, after a transfer to the branch train, Jean found herself at the stop for Castle Craig. She carefully checked her compartment to ensure that she hadn't left anything behind, then stepped out and onto the platform.

"Miss McBrien?" said a man waiting there, and Jean nodded and allowed herself to be escorted to the car that would take her to Craig Castle.

Someone had clearly rung for tea the moment the car pulled up in the drive, for a tray was brought out to Jean moments after she made herself comfortable in the sitting room. She sat there for a minute that passed like an hour, politely examining the paintings on the walls, an old grandfather clock in the corner diligently ticking out the endless seconds of waiting.

Finally, a graceful figure appeared through a door at the far end of the room.

"Miss McBrien." Lady Esmé Beaufort-Stuart extended an elegant hand with a gracious smile. "So good of you to make the journey."

"Thank you for having me," replied Jean, standing. She did not settle herself back into her chair until Esmé too had taken a seat. Jean was not the type to be awed by titles, but her host exhibited a quiet authority that reminded Jean more of her superiors in the military than anything else.

"The boys have been very well," Esmé said after a moment. "They'll be returning to boarding school in a few weeks."

"Good." Jean hesitated. "Thank you for taking them in, in the first place. I know it was a tremendous burden off of my sister's mind when they were evacuated during the heaviest of the bombing..."

"We were so glad to have them." Esmé's smile was shaky but sincere. "They've brought so much joy to our home, even when the war hit us so hard."

How strange it was, Jean mused, sitting across from Esmé Beaufort-Stuart. How strange to know everything about this woman's family—her mother's relatives suffering through the occupation of Ormaie, and her sons spread across Scotland during the war, and the horrific fate of her charmingly wild "Baker Street Irregular" of a daughter—and yet to not be able to say a word about any of it. Bloody Official Secrets Act.

"Well, I'm so relieved they've found such a good home," Jean said quietly. "Much better than any I could have given them."

And Jean meant it. If she had left her work when she heard about the deaths of her sister and brother-in-law—if she had gone home and taken in her nephews—they would have led ordinary and perhaps dull lives, raised by an aunt who loved them but wasn't accustomed to sharing her quiet existence with two small children. Here, though, Jock and Ross had an entire estate to explore, the best education imaginable, and a surrogate mother who had raised six children of her own. Besides, Lady Beaufort-Stuart clearly needed the boys to fill part of the void left by her two lost children, almost as much as the boys needed her presence.

Esmé's smile was much more stable now.

"Would you like to see them?" she asked.

Jean nodded, and Esmé rose and led Jean through the house, to a sunny room in which Jock was reading a book on Admiral Nelson while Ross carefully affixed a wing to a model plane. Jock's eyes widened when he saw the visitor.

"Auntie Jean!" he exclaimed, leaping up and rushing to the door, and Ross (although he only somewhat remembered Jean) followed suit.

And Jean wrapped her arms around her sister's boys, torn between laughing and crying, as they began to babble at her in the Glaswegian of their youths. Both were so much taller than they had been when last she'd seen them (before the bombs started falling in earnest, some four years prior) and Jock's voice had dropped to a low baritone. Jean asked them about their studies, about their pastimes, about how they liked Aberdeenshire; and they answered enthusiastically, not commenting on how strange it was that they had seen neither hide nor hair of one of their only living relatives for so long. Part of Jean never wanted to let them out of her sight ever again, but when Esmé asked her to stay for tea, Jean shook her head.

"But you'll be back to visit soon, won't you?" Jock asked.

"Of course, dear," Jean quietly lied.

Not until she was back on the train did Jean allow her tears to fall in earnest—great, gasping sobs filled with regret. What had she been thinking, to have believed that anything was more important than taking care of those boys? Why had she allowed anything to keep her from returning home and doing her duty to care for her sister's children? Jean did not count herself as ambitious, but she wondered if that was what it had been—pure, simple ambition that had kept her from leaving the exulted (if clandestine) position that she had held during the war. For a few years, she had been _important_ , she had made a difference. But, after all that, had she made a difference to the right people?

Tears exhausted, Jean sighed and looked out the window at the sky darkening over the moors. The war in Europe had been over for three months already, and yet she still sometimes steeled herself for the roar of bombers overhead, even knowing that none were coming. There was no use in crying over spilt milk, Jean told herself sternly, and if she had been absent for her nephews during the war, it was because she was busy making sure that the bombers stopped flying sooner rather than later, safeguarding the Britain in which she hoped they would grow up.

And, as she thought back over her years at Bletchley Park, over her short-lived but impactful reign at Hut Four, Jean smiled to herself. Perhaps Jock and Ross were now someone else's boys because of her absence during the war. But, after all, the war had given Jean her girls. And, thought Jean, that certainly counted for something.


End file.
